Tag: food

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Beverley Jarvis – Eat Well To Age Well

international womens day

The latest book from fabulous author Beverley Jarvis is: Eat Well To Age Well. It covers some amazing recipes with a variety of delicious ingredients, all packed with healthy nutrients. The recipes are designed to be made by anyone, no matter their culinary abilities.

Beverley has filmed some fantastic video content for us to share. Firstly 2 recipes from her book, an Asian inspired pan fried Turkey and Vegetable stir fry, secondly a Sweet Potato dish with Smoked Mackerel, Horseradish and Parsley

In her second video, Beverley shares some simple healthy food swaps that we can all make to improve our diet:

Lastly, with the amazing invention of the Air Fryer, Beverley shares a beautiful Salmon Dish, along with some fantastic home-made muffins that you can do in your Air Fryer.

Click here to buy Eat Well To Age Well, directly here on the Hammersmith Health Books Website.

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Perfect Picnic Recipe from Beverley Jarvis

Author of ‘Eat Well to Age Well’ Beverley Jarvis has provided recipes from her fan-favourite cookbook that are the perfect, delicious addition to any picnic.

Minty Dressed Salad with Grapes and Melon

This makes a deliciously light starter. You could double the recipe and prepare enough for 4, but only add the dressing to half of it, packing and chilling the remainder to be used the next day. For a change, use honeydew melon rather than watermelon.

Ingredients:
1 little gem lettuce, washed, drained and shredded
1 kiwi fruit, thinly sliced, without peeling
1 small bag pea shoots and baby leaves, from the supermarket, or 1 large handful baby spinach, washed Handful mint leaves, chopped
6 cherry tomatoes, halved
8 small broccoli florets, blanched for 2 minutes, in boiling water, then cooled in ice cold water, drained and dried on absorbent kitchen paper
2 thick slices of water melon deseeded and chopped
12 seedless red grapes, halved

For the Dijon dressing:
3 tbsp olive oil
Juice ½ lemon
1 tsp runny honey
1 tbsp freshly chopped parsley
1 clove garlic, chopped
2 tsp Dijon mustard
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

To Serve:
2 tbsp toasted pumpkin seeds

Equipment:
You will need a chopping board and knife, salad bowl, teaspoon, tablespoon, 2 salad serving spoons, citrus juicer, small saucepan with lid, small screw-top jar and salad bowl.

Nutritional Note:
Fibre, vitamins B6 and C are provided by the kiwi fruit, as well as magnesium. Pea shoots provide valuable fibre plus vitamins A, C, E and K, and the mineral potassium. Vitamins A and C are in the tomatoes, as well as lycopene which is beneficial for prostate health. Melon provides vitamins A, C, B6 and B9 and magnesium.

1. Put the little gem lettuce leaves into in a salad bowl with the kiwi fruit slices, pea shoots and baby leaves, or the baby spinach and mint. Throw the tomatoes, broccoli, melon and grapes on top.

2. Make the dressing by putting all the dressing ingredients into a screw-top jar and shaking well.

3. When you are ready to serve the salad, pour the dressing over it, toss well to coat all the ingredients and serve immediately sprinkled with the crunchy pumpkin seeds

Experienced cookery teacher and writer Beverley Jarvis has put together this book of 75+ delicious recipes to inspire her super-ager peers to eat well, with all the nutrients that are increasingly needed as we get older, and to cook whole-foods from scratch quickly and easily so that meals are enjoyable but never a chore. To read the first chapter for free, click here.

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Migraine Awareness Week

migraine awareness week

From the 5th to the 10th of September is Migraine Awareness Week so it is good to be reminded of helpful approaches to migraine relief from the recent past that may be overlooked in the face of current high tech innovation. Dr John Mansfield’s focus on food intolerance and his elimination diet (I say ‘his’ but he always credited others, including Dr Theron Randolph, with developing this first) were a life changer for me as his publisher as well as for his many patients, ending my ongoing, increasingly severe nauseous headaches.

Lancet study

John’s book, The Migraine Revolution (now sadly out of print) came out after he collaborated with Dr Ellen Grant of the Migraine Clinic Charing Cross Hospital in 1978, on a study of 60 patients with severe migraine, later published in the Lancet.1

His Hammersmith Health Books book ‘The Six Secrets of Successful Weight Loss’ contains insightful information and research on migraines and you can check this book out here. He wrote:

‘We put all patients in the trial onto my elimination diet as described in chapter 5. In 85% of these 60 patients, food sensitivity was discovered which, when addressed, resulted in all 85% losing their migraines. Fifteen out of the 60 patients had high blood pressure before starting the study, and all of these 15 found that, when they avoided the foods identified, their blood pressure returned to normal.’

The commonest foods found to cause a reaction were ‘wheat (78%), orange (65%), eggs (45%), tea and coffee (40% each), chocolate and milk (37% each), and corn, cane sugar and yeast (33% each)’. However, what is of overriding important is that these intolerances are completely individual. In my case the culprit was tap water, identified on Day 10 of the Elimination diet. Without his approach I wonder if I would have ever uncovered the culprit.

Case history: Jennifer T

In Six Secrets, John wrote:

Jennifer T was 29 years old when she first attended my clinic. She had been around 16 years old when she first noticed having some headaches, but by the time she was 20 her migraines had started in earnest about once a month. Soon after she started taking the contraceptive pill the migraines had become more frequent and severe. Having tried three separate brands she reluctantly gave up the pill and the migraines improved somewhat. When she was 25 she married and by this time her headaches had worsened and she was also experiencing bouts of depression and general fatigue. She had had her first child at 27 and had developed postnatal depression, but this had responded to one month’s treatment with antidepressants. However, her fatigue and migraines had become progressively worse, so her GP had tried various antidepressants, tranquilisers and migraine preventive drugs. These treatments had only had marginal benefits. Over these few years her figure, that she had been so proud of, had increased from 9 stone (57 kg) to over 11 stone (70 kg) (her height was 5 feet 6 inches (1.68 metres)).

Discussing her worsening problems with her excellent GP, he had mentioned that he had read details of several clinical trials performed at London Teaching Hospitals which had convincingly demonstrated that most migraines were caused by everyday foodstuffs (85% of adults in several studies and 93% of children in one study). She told her GP she had already tried omitting cheese, chocolate, citrus fruits and red wine – all to no avail. He explained that commonly eaten foods such as wheat, eggs, yeast and various sugars seemed to be the more likely foods causing the problem. The foods involved vary enormously between individual patients, so he referred her to my clinic.

Having taken a history from her I told her that her experience of increasing weight, migraine and fatigue was extremely suggestive of food sensitivity as her GP had rightly suspected. I put her on my standard elimination diet as with my other patients. She was warned that when she started this diet she would suffer a withdrawal reaction if her problems were indeed food sensitivity.

When she came to see me on the seventh day of the diet she ruefully confirmed that she had indeed had a severe migraine starting at lunchtime on the first day of the diet, being particularly intense in the evening of that day and all through the second day. The headache decreased in intensity on days three and four. The fatigue was also very bad on days two and three so she spent the second day of the diet in bed. After day four there was a noticeable improvement in her fatigue, but to her surprise she found that her muscles, particularly her thighs, buttocks and lower back ached as if she had flu. These symptoms are termed ‘withdrawal myalgia’ by doctors familiar with food sensitivity. These aches disappeared late on day five. When she saw me on day seven, her eyes were sparkling and she could hardly contain her enthusiasm for the changes that had occurred in her health. She had lost 7 lb (3 kg) in the six days of the diet and in the last 48 hours she had lost the puffiness in her face and all traces of her fatigue. In addition, her mind felt clearer than it had done for years. I told her she had had a classic withdrawal reaction and that food sensitivity was certainly the root cause of her problems, including the weight gain.

As with the other patients, she then gradually reintroduced one food at a time. She reacted adversely to wheat, corn, oats, rye and malt, but no other foods were incriminated. The reactions to these foods varied slightly, but basically consisted of recurrences of all her symptoms and an increase in weight. Despite these reactions, in less than two months her weight had decreased back to 9 stone by simply avoiding these foods.

As she found these foods are difficult to avoid permanently I offered her specific desensitisation as described in Chapter 6. She continued with this desensitising treatment for two years and managed to keep her weight at around 9 stone and had no trace of the headaches, fatigue or depression she once had had. I told her that after two years’ treatment she could probably discontinue it while still eating the offending foods providing she didn’t eat them in large quantities or daily. If she did eat the problem foods again in large quantities she would be likely to re-sensitise herself.

In my case I simply avoid drinking tap water, whether straight or in hot drinks, not knowing what the actual ingredient that causes the problem is. Boiled water is not the answer. Filtered water is not always OK, which can be a disastrous discovery, first with overwhelming sleepiness and then completely debilitating headache! Worst of all are swimming pools. Bottled water continues to be the answer despite the expense.

What may the problem foods be for you?

John wrote:

‘In migraine, although wheat is the most common, oranges would be at around position three or four. Only around 2% of migraine sufferers react only to cheese, chocolate, citrus fruits and red wine, contrary to popular belief. When you do the elimination diet, you will probably find that you react only to a handful of foods, and if you are lucky, just one or two. Occasionally someone will react to something obscure like pineapple or melon.’

Of course, in Dr Mansfield’s research with Dr Grant, 15% of migraine patients did NOT have a food intolerance as the root cause. Migraines are a complex phenomenon to which many factors may contribute. However, given the simplicity and other beneficial insights from doing his elimination diet (I also rid myself of anxiety, plantar fasciitis and recent unexplained weight increase) there is much to be gained by trying it out.

  1. Grant EC. Food allergies and migraine. Lancet 1979; 1(8123):

966-969. doi: 10.1016/s0140-6736(79)91735-5.

Migraine Awareness Week (5th – 10th September) is an annual initiative by The Migraine Trust which aims to provide support and care to those suffering with migraines. The causes of migraines and the best course of treatment can differ for every person and what works for some may not be as effective for others, so if you are struggling with migraines, make sure to consult your GP.

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Spring-perfect recipes from ‘Eat Well to Age Well’

Spring has officially sprung so what better way to celebrate than by trying out some delicious and healthy recipes perfect for this season? Taken from the recently launched cookbook, ‘Eat Well to Age Well’ by Beverly Jarvis.

King Prawn Noodle Salad Bowl

Serves 2

This is a great fish dish with Oriental flavours. It is easy to prepare and speedy to cook – a tasty and nutritious meal, which looks pretty too.

INGREDIENTS:

1 tbsp sesame seeds

150 g wholegrain noodles

3 tbsp olive or rapeseed oil

250 g shelled raw king prawns

1 rounded tbsp red curry paste

2 tsp runny honey

2 tsp fish sauce (I like Blue Dragon)

1 tbsp light soy sauce

1⁄2 lime, juiced

1 tbsp freshly chopped coriander

1 carrot, shaved into ribbons

2 radishes, sliced

4 baby sweetcorn, sliced thickly

2 spring onions, chopped

 

EQUIPMENT:

You will need a chopping board and knife, a large saucepan with a lid, a large frying pan or wok, a dinner plate, vegetable peeler, citrus juicer, tablespoon, and teaspoon, a small bowl, a wooden spoon and 2 shallow serving bowls.

NUTRITIONAL NOTE:

The prawns make a valuable contribution towards your RDI for protein as well as providing vitamins A, B6 and B12 plus calcium and iodine. Prawns contain quite high levels of cholesterol but a 1996 study, compar- ing a low-cholesterol diet with one that included eating prawns every day, found that the prawn diet increased HDL (‘good choles- terol’) and significantly decreased triglycerides while only slightly increasing LDL (‘bad’ cholesterol). Prawns also have a good balance of essential fatty acids with almost three times more omega-3 fatty acid than omega-6 fatty acids (see page 17). The vegetables contribute fibre and antioxidants.

INTRUCTIONS:

  1. In a clean, hot frying pan, over a medium heat, toast the sesame seeds for about 1 minute, stirring frequently, until golden, then transfer to a plate and set aside.
  2. Cook the noodles according to the packet instructions, normally about 5 minutes. Drain.
  3. Meanwhile, heat 1 tbsp oil in a wok or large frying pan over a medium heat. Add the prawns and stir-fry for a minute or two until pink all over.
  4. Add the curry paste and stir-fry for a minute.
  5. Add the honey and fish sauce, with about 4 tbsp water, and stir and heat for 2 minutes.
  6. In a small bowl, make the dressing by combining the soy sauce, lime juice, remaining oil and coriander.
  7. Combine the drained noodles with the carrot, radishes, sweetcorn and spring onions.
  8. Pour the dressing over the noodle mix and toss everything together.
  9. Serve the noodles, divided between the two bowls, with the prawn curry poured over, and topped with the reserved toasted sesame seeds.

 

Vegetable Risotto With Roast Tomatoes

Serves 2 – 3

Risotto makes a filling and truly delicious main course, which is easy to cook if you use this largely baked-in-the-oven method. It is a great complete meal, with bags of flavour in both the risotto, which is cooked in vegetable stock and the tangy tomatoes. I usually prefer using brown rice for extra fibre and vitamins. However, there are times when a creamy, satisfying risotto just has to be made with arborio rice. You will find it in supermarkets, alongside long-grain rice, sometimes just labelled ‘risotto rice’. However, don’t stress if you can’t find arborio risotto rice; just use long-grain white rice instead. It won’t be exactly like an Italian risotto but it will still taste great, I promise!

INGREDIENTS:     

1 tbsp rapeseed or olive oil 1 medium-size red onion finely chopped 1 stick celery, finely chopped

1 medium-size carrot

sliced 125 g sweet vine tomatoes, quartered, or halved if using cherry tomatoes

Salt and freshly ground black pepper 150 g arborio risotto rice, or long grain rice, rinsed and drained

1 tsp freshly grated root ginger

1 clove garlic, crushed

650 ml hot vegetable stock

3 tbsp white wine, or dry cider, optional, or use water

5 tbsp frozen peas

1 small red or yellow pepper, de-seeded and chopped

EQUIPMENT:

You will need a chopping board and knife and a large frying pan with lid which is both hob- and oven-friendly. (If you are worried about the handle, triple wrap it in tin foil, before transferring the pan to the oven.) Also a teaspoon, tablespoon, wooden spoon, roast- ing tray, measuring jug and cheese grater.

NUTRITIONAL NOTE:

The rice makes a valuable contribution towards your RDI for carbohydrate. The tomatoes and bell pepper add fibre, antioxidant polyphenols and vitamins A and C.

TO SERVE:

50 g vegetarian parmesan cheese, freshly grated. Handful basil leaves, chopped. The oven-roasted tomatoes.

INSTRUCTIONS:

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 210°/190°C fan/gas 6.
  2. In a large frying pan, heat 1⁄2 tbsp oil over a medium heat, until shimmering.
  3. Stirring frequently, over a medium heat, fry the onion, celery and carrot for 5-7 minutes, until softened.
  4. Meanwhile, put the tomatoes onto a roasting tray. Drizzle them with the remaining oil, season with salt and pepper, then roast for about 15 minutes.
  5. Stir the rice, ginger and garlic into the pan with the vegetables.
  6. Increase the heat and add 300 ml of the stock, with the wine or water. Stir well and bring to a rapid boil.
  7. Cover with a lid and transfer to the oven, above the tomatoes
  8. Bake for 15 minutes.
  9. Remove the risotto from the oven and transfer it back to the hob.
  10. Gently, stir in the peas and the red or yellow pepper, with the remaining stock.
  11. Cook uncovered, stirring, over a me- dium-high heat, for 5-7 minutes or so, until the rice is al dente and the peas and peppers are just cooked.
  12. Remove from the heat, adjust the sea- soning if necessary, then serve, sprinkled with the basil, and the parmesan cheese, accompanied by the roasted tomatoes.

 

 

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Why Diets Fail You

Nowhere is hope over experience more prevalent than in the world of the multimillion-dollar diet industry.

There is a growing amount of evidence suggesting that for many people going on a diet which restricts what you eat as a way of achieving enduring weight loss does not work and is not sustainable in either the mid or long term.

If restrictive or calorie-controlled diets worked, then by now one ‘super diet’ would have emerged and it would work for everyone, but this is definitely not the case. Hundreds of diet books are published every year and no doubt this trend will continue.

Any diet that encourages you to eat fewer calories, or to radically cut out whole food groups, in order to achieve weight loss is scientifically flawed. Denying yourself food to the point of going hungry convinces your subconscious mind that you are living in a time of food shortage or famine and passes messages to your body to hold onto its fat as your mind is not sure for how long the food shortage will continue. As you can imagine, this is counter-productive to good health as the body feels under stress.

If you have dieted in the past, and most people have, your mind will have a ‘memory’ of experiencing those periods of reduced food intake. Periods of self-induced calorie reduction where you experience hunger pangs are very difficult to maintain and are often the trigger for a stint of bingeing or excessive eating. This is what is meant by ‘yo-yo dieting’. Yo-yo dieting like this can negatively affect your metabolism, making it even harder in the future to regulate your weight. If you recognise you have a pattern of dieting and bingeing, then it is even more vital that when you commit to eating real food as part of nutritionally balanced meals that leave you satisfied, and that you do not go hungry, as this will quickly plunge your metabolism back into fat-storing mode.

A holistic, all-body approach to eating real food means that there is no advantage to going hungry or feeling deprived. This approach is diametrically opposed to the usual diet model. In How to Feel Differently about Food, we encourage a way of eating that promotes reassuring your mind that nutritious food is available to you and that your body is no longer under threat of impending food shortage. This reassurance enables habitual stress levels around food to be reduced and when the stress symptoms of emotional eating are reduced, your body reduces its production of cortisol – the stress hormone that can also inhibit weight loss. Feeling less stressed also ensures that the nourishment in the foods that are eaten becomes more ‘bio-available’ and advantageous. Later in the book we explain how stress shuts down many of the processes of digestion, leaving sufferers deprived of essential nutrition.

Our methodology promotes resetting your metabolism into fat-burning mode instead of fat-storing mode and this is achieved through selecting appetising and tasty foods that encourage satiety. In addition, this approach HOW TO FEEL DIFFERENTLY ABOUT FOOD 10 focuses on the effect of refined sugar as a key cause of weight gain. Sugar and simple carbohydrates are rapidly absorbed into your bloodstream and affect your body’s production of insulin. Rapid spikes in blood sugar cause insulin levels to rise and take sugar out of the bloodstream and into storage in the liver, muscles and (if they are full) fat cells; the high glucose level is therefore followed by a rapid drop in blood glucose levels. This in itself can be the cause of sugar cravings and the trigger for compulsive eating. The cumulative effect of eating in ways that spike insulin production eventually leads to what is called ‘insulin resistance’. This is a condition in which the cells of the body become unresponsive to increasingly high levels of insulin and this is a key predictor of diabetes.

The latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC, 2014) in the US show that almost 10 per cent of the US population has been diagnosed with diabetes. The equivalent figures from Diabetes UK (2015) show figures approaching 3.5 million in 2015 and all predictions expect these numbers to grow year upon year. In addition, many, many more people the world over have ‘pre-diabetes’ (also known as metabolic syndrome) and remain undiagnosed until their health deteriorates with associated serious health problems – heart, circulation, eyesight and kidney damage – that bring them to medical attention and the confirmation of type 2 diabetes. Going back to health risks associated with being overweight, the incidence of pre-diabetes and diabetes itself is higher in patients who are classed as obese.

There are two other important hormones found to affect a person’s ability to manage his/her weight. The first is called leptin. It is made by fat cells and works to decrease appetite. This can become unbalanced in response to insulin resistance caused by spikes in blood sugar levels. Leptin is responsible for sending messages to your brain that you’ve eaten enough and feel sated. When leptin’s signalling goes awry, the hormone stops being produced so the messages that you have eaten enough are no longer sent, which leads to an inability to determine satiety. This is called ‘leptin resistance’. Medical professionals are now focusing more on the part leptin plays in the development of obesity, and how the hormone responds may actually be the result of obesity.

The second key involved with appetite is called ghrelin and its job is to signal to you that you are hungry. It also influences how quickly you feel hungry again after eating. Ghrelin naturally increases before meal times and is then designed to reduce after eating for around three hours until it once more naturally increases to signal the need to eat again. However, this hormone too can become unbalanced and send hunger signals more frequently, encouraging a reduction in the time between meals or even promoting the habit of constant grazing on food. One way that ghrelin becomes out of balance is through stress, which disturbs sleep patterns. This can affect workers who work unnatural hours such as night shifts. Not getting enough sleep has been shown to increase levels of ghrelin and cause an increase in appetite.

In simple terms, the hormonal responses that help manage appetite and weight are like a house of cards that are all interdependent on each other to maximise your health, weight management and wellbeing. Although designed to be perfectly in balance, a key element that can cause the whole house of cards to collapse is the eating of sugar and simple carbohydrates. It doesn’t take long before sugar spikes begin to undermine the complex hormonal interactions.

The good news is that by reducing stress levels, improving sleep patterns and changing the types of food eaten it is possible to re-calibrate the hormones’ signals to the brain to promote a feeling of fullness and enhanced wellbeing. On the food front this is achieved by cutting out refined sugars, simple carbohydrates and processed foods and replacing them with real foods, including plenty of good fats, such as olive oil, oily fish and nuts that your body can naturally process.

 

This blog was taken from Sally Baker and Liz Hogon’s book How to Feel Differently About Food

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Pumpkin Power: Your Halloween Health Kick

Pumpkin Recipes

It’s the one and only time of year where we see hundreds of pumpkins lining supermarket shelves and garden paths, often with a rather wicked smile grinning back at you. But don’t be fooled, they’re actually one of the greatest superfoods out there. Pumpkin seeds are one of the best plant-based sources of zinc, which works wonders for the human body by improving the immune system, preventing osteoporosis and reducing cholesterol. Pumpkin seeds are also a fantastic source of protein, fibre and magnesium. They help with weight loss, relaxation and increased fertility in both men and women, and their high levels of L-tryptophan make them an effective mood booster – particularly useful as the cold weather sets in!

Extracted from her book, Love Your Bones, Max Tuck provides two delicious recipes to help you make the most of this Halloween superfood:

 

Pumpkin seed pesto

In this recipe pumpkin seeds replace the traditional pine nuts that can be so very expensive. For optimum nutrition and digestibility it is important to soak the pumpkin seeds for a few hours beforehand.

  • In a food processor mix all of the following to a smooth paste:

½ cup soaked pumpkin seeds

¼ cup water

The juice of ½ lemon

Optional: splashes of tamari or Bragg’s Liquid Aminos to taste

A medium clove of garlic

¼ cup of cold-pressed olive oil

 

  • Separately, chop a medium-sized bunch of fresh basil leaves very finely. Stir them into the pumpkin seed mixture or pulse for a second.
  • Serve the pesto stirred into pasta, preferably into ‘courgette pasta’ made from thin shavings of courgette cut with a potato peeler.

 

Pumpkin seed and walnut loaf

2 cups pumpkin seeds, soaked for six to eight hours

2 cups walnuts, soaked overnight

1 cup carrot, chopped

1 cup red pepper, deseeded and chopped

1 cup onion, diced

1 cup parsley, chopped

1 cup dried mushrooms

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1 tablespoon raw tahini (optional)

Sprig of parsley to garnish

 

  • Process the pumpkin seeds, walnuts and carrot in a food processor until smooth. Remove and place in a bowl.
  • Pulse the remaining ingredients except the parsley together in a food processor until they are of a chunky consistency. Place in the bowl with the pumpkin seed mixture and combine thoroughly.
  • Place on a serving dish and mould into the desired shape. Garnish with parsley.

 

These recipes were taken from Love Your Bones by Max Tuck.

 

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The PK Cookbook: PK bread recipe

PK Cookbook

The single biggest reason for lapsing from the PK diet (Paleo-ketogenic) is the absence of bread. To secure the diet for life you must first make PK bread. I have searched and nothing is currently available commercially which passes muster. Loaves will become available as demand builds, but in the meantime you have to make your own bread. If you do not have the energy to do this yourself but have any friends or family offering to help you, then top of the list must be, ‘Please make my daily bread’. PK bread consists of just linseed, sunshine salt (see Chapter 13, page 93) and water.  Americans, and others, may be more familiar with linseed being referred to as flax or flaxseed or common flax. There is technically a subtle difference – flax is grown as a fibre plant that is used for linen.  Linseed is grown for its seed. The flax plant is taller than linseed and is ‘pulled’ by hand, or nowadays by machine.

How to make a PK bread loaf in five minutes

Please forgive the tiresome detail, but you must succeed with your first loaf because then you will be encouraged to carry on. I can now put this recipe together in five minutes (proper minutes that is – not the ‘and this is what I did earlier’ TV version). I have spent the last six months making a loaf almost every morning – there have been many revisions and the version below is the current recipe which I think is perfect!

Equipment needed:

  • Cooking oven that gets to at least 220 degrees Centigrade
  • Weighing scales
  • Nutribullet (or similarly effective grinding machine – do not attempt to do this with a pestle and mortar; I know – I have tried and failed)
  • Mixing bowl
  • A 500 gram (or one pound in weight) loaf baking tin
  • Measuring jug
  • Cup in which to weigh the linseed
  • Wooden spoon
  • Wire rack for cooling
  • Paper towels

Ingredients needed:

  • 250 grams of whole linseed (use dark or golden linseed grains)
  • One teaspoon of sunshine salt (can be purchased from www.sales@drmyhill.co.uk) or unrefined sea salt
  • Dollop of coconut oil or lard
Actions Notes
Take 250 grams of whole linseed You could purchase linseed in 250 gram packs and that saves weighing it. Use dark or golden linseed grains – the golden grains produce a brown loaf, the dark a black one.Do not use commercially ground linseed – the grinding is not fine enough, also it will have absorbed some water already and this stops it sticking together in the recipe.If you purchase linseed in bulk then you must weigh it really accurately in order to get the proportion of water spot on.
No raising agent is required.
Pour half the linseed into the Nutribullet/grinder together with one rounded teaspoon of PK ‘Sunshine’ salt (see page 93).
Grind into a fine flour.		 Use the flat blade to get the finest flour.Grind until the machine starts to groan and sweat with the effort! You need a really fine flour to make a good loaf. This takes about 30 seconds.The finer you can grind the flour the better it sticks together and the better the loaf.I do this in two batches of 125 grams or the blades ‘hollow out’ the mix so that half does not circulate and grind fully.
Pour the ground flour into a mixing bowl.
Repeat the above with the second half of the seeds and add to the mixing bowl. Whilst this is grinding, measure the water you need.
Add in exactly 270 ml water (not a typo – 270 it is). Chuck it all in at once; do not dribble it in.Stir it with a wooden spoon and keep stirring. It will thicken over the course of 30 seconds.Keep stirring until it becomes sticky and holds together in a lump. The amount of water is critical. When it comes to cooking, I am a natural chucker in of ingredients and hope for the best. But in this case, you must measure.Initially it will look as if you have added far too much water, but keep stirring.
Use your fingers to scoop up a dollop of coconut oil or lard. Use this to grease the baking tin. Your hands will be covered in fat which means you can pick up your sticky dough without it sticking to your hands
Use your hands to shape the dough until it has a smooth surface.
Drop it into the greased baking tin		 Spend about 30 seconds doing this. Do not be tempted to knead or fold the loaf or you introduce layers of fat which stop it sticking to itself. This helps prevent the loaf cracking as it rises and cooks (although I have to say it does not matter two hoots if it does. It just looks more professional if it does not!)
Let the loaf ‘rest’ for a few minutes …so it fully absorbs all the water and becomes an integral whole. This is not critical but allows enough time to…
…rub any excess fat into your skin, where it will be absorbed There is no need to wash your hands after doing this – the basis for most hand creams is coconut oil or lard. (Yes, lard. It amuses me that rendered animal fat is a major export from our local knacker man to the cosmetic industry.)
Put the loaf into the hot oven – at least 220°C (430°F) – for 60 minutes Set a timer or you will forget – I always do!I do not think the temperature is too critical – but it must be hot enough to turn the water in the loaf into steam because this is what raises it. I cook on a wood-fired stove and the oven temperature is tricky to be precise with. That does not seem to matter so long as it is really hot. Indeed, I like the flavour of a slightly scorched crust.
Wipe out the mixing bowl with a paper towel. This cleaning method is quick and easy. The slightly greasy surface which remains will be ideal for the next loaf. The point here is that fat cannot be fermented by bacteria or yeast and does not need washing off mixing and cooking utensils. My frying pan has not been washed for over 60 years. I know this because my mother never washed it either.
When the timer goes off, take the loaf out of the oven, tip it out and allow it to cool on a wire rack.
Once cool keep it in a plastic bag in the fridge.		 It lasts a week kept like this and freezes well too.It is best used sliced thinly with a narrow-bladed serrated knife.

Fry your freshly made PK bread in coconut oil or lard and add the following for a delicious PK breakfast;

  • 2-3 boiled eggs
  • Smoked fish, tinned fish, tinned cod’s roe
  • Paté or rillette
  • Nut butter
  • Vegan cheese (check the carb content of this) and tomato
  • Coyo yoghurt

This blog was taken from Sarah Myhill and Craig Robinson’s new book The PK Cookbook

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How food influences your mood

How Food Influences Your Mood

Learning to feel differently about food includes recognising the link between nutrition and mental wellbeing. There is no point in achieving a slimmer body if the price is depression and increased anxiety. Scientific researchers suggest people should be cautious in how they reduce their calorie intake while attempting to slim down as research findings show that sudden changes in nutrition, or reducing certain nutrients in a diet, can result in a worsening of depressive symptoms. (Sathyanarayana et al, 2008)

A study in the British Journal of Psychiatry (Akbaraly et al, 2009) also found evidence that eating a wide range of real foods versus processed foods of poor nutritional quality increased the likelihood of depression.

When people abruptly stop eating large amounts of processed foods containing unhealthy fats, and loaded with sugar, they can often experience withdrawal symptoms similar to those of going “cold turkey” from drugs. The withdrawal symptoms can last for several days and for some people the symptoms of headache, muscle pain and feeling below par can be powerful enough for them to return to their old eating habits just to make them feel “normal” again. Stick with the process, though, as the rewards will far outweigh any temporary discomfort.

Other nutritional deficiencies have a part to play in feeling low or even depressed. These include deficiencies in zinc, omega-3 fats, B vitamins, B6 and B12 especially, and vitamin D.

Missing meals can cause a dip in blood sugar levels, resulting in the release of adrenaline which increases feelings of anxiety and can even be a trigger for raised levels of anxiety generally.

Disordered eating often involves binge eating. This causes physical discomfort but can also often be a trigger for feelings of despair and shame. If overeating happens late at night, the inevitable bloating can interfere with the ability to sleep, again lowering mood.

Following a restrictive diet where carbohydrates are eliminated has an impact on serotonin levels in the brain that can lead to feelings of depression. We encourage eating a balance of complex, unrefined starchy carbohydrates such as vegetables and protein and healthy fats to maintain a positive mood, and promote satiety.

Making changes towards healthier food choices is obviously beneficial on many different levels. The changeover can happen during a radical period when mass changes are made, or one meal at a time, gradually reducing the amount of processed sugars and high fat foods that are eaten. How this is tackled is down to personal choice, and what best suits each individual.

In essence, a healthy diet will not cause ecstatic happiness but a poor diet could be a contributing factor to feeling low, so it’s important for mental wellbeing to eat a wide variety of real foods.

This blog is taken from How to Feel Differently About Food by Sally Baker and Liz Hogon. You can read the first chapter here!

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So, what is the Paleo diet?

What is the paleo diet

First, it is important to state there is no such thing as ‘the Paleo diet’ per se. Pre-agricultural diets were regionally variable and seasonally cyclical. In colder climates, they tended to be meat-based as the land was either under snow for much of the year or of poor quality and only suited to grazing. In warmer regions fewer red meats were eaten and fruits and plants dominated. Although the ancestral diet may have varied in content, it was more nutrient dense than that of today. So, although no standardised Paleo diet exists, the Paleo diet is usually defined by what it excludes, and is generally accepted as being, legume and dairy free.

It is thought that the advent of agriculture around 10,000 years ago marked the demise of the nomadic way of life, giving way to the cultivation of grains and legumes and the domestication of animals for milk. Archaeological remains suggest an abrupt decline in health at this time. Loss of stature, arthritis and other diseases associated with poor mineralisation seem to coincide with the introduction of grains into the diet. Ten thousand years might seem like a long time to those of us who hope to live to around 80 but is, in fact, the evolutionary equivalent of the ‘blink of an eye’, and would not have given us enough time to adapt.

However, there is archaeological evidence that some hunter-gatherers were eating grains much earlier than this. It seems the closer to the equator, the greater the intake of plant-based foods, which in some cases may have included wild grains. This may explain why gluten (and dairy) intolerance is more prevalent in colder latitudes, and why those with Scandinavian or north European ancestry are poorly suited to a vegetarian diet. What the hunter gatherer diet seemed to have in common was that they were highly nutritious and all contained meat or fish. They provided good levels of minerals, saturated fat and fat-soluble vitamins, with little or no grain or dairy and variable amounts of protein, most of which was derived from meat.

Much of the diet was raw which further increased the nutrient density and provided good levels of fibre. I suspect that rather than being historically accurate, the modern assumption that the Paleo diet was a high protein diet results from the misplaced fat and carb phobia diet that is still influencing nutritional thinking today. In fact, the food group most highly prized in the ancestral diet was saturated fat. Carbs have been given a bad press because they are nearly always derived from grains, a food group that causes problems in a number of people.

However, carbs from vegetables and fruits are much easier for the body to handle. A diet high in raw vegetables and salads does not have the same effect as a diet high in cereals, although both are high in carbohydrate. Whilst it may seem impossible to imagine a diet without grains, they are easily replaced by alternatives such as vegetable pastas, and coconut, seed and nut flours in baking and break making. Nuts can be fermented into cheeses, coconut cream into yoghurt and soft cheese, and the milk from nuts and coconuts can be made into delicious desserts and ice-creams, making Paleo eating varied and enjoyable.

What is also known about the Paleo diet is that it contained virtually no sugar. Refining has enabled us to concentrate sugars in quantities that our bodies are ill equipped to handle. For example, a soft drink contains the equivalent of eight and a half feet of sugar cane – an impossible quantity to get through in its unrefined state. The high proportion of carbohydrates in the modern diet compounds our inbuilt predilection for sweet foods.

Until technology got involved in food production, foods that were bitter were generally poisonous and those that were sweet were usually safe to eat, but that doesn’t apply today since many foods are laced with sugar, high-fructose corn syrup and artificial sweeteners – and they definitely aren’t safe to eat. Our first food, breast milk, contains a sugar called lactose and thus the early association between feeding and being loved is established before we are capable of conscious thought. Eating is associated with emotion, and this is one of the reasons sweet foods can be comforting, and why we can feel deprived and miserable when trying to give them up.

Despite their pervasive presence at nearly every meal today, in Europe and America grains were only elevated from animal fodder to dietary staple at the time of the industrial revolution, cultivating in us a taste for stodgy, high-carbohydrate foods, which has been a contributory factor to the obesity epidemic. The Arabic nations seem to have been eating grains the longest, and their wheat sensitivity and carbohydrate intolerance are rare. The rapid increase in degenerative disease that has characterised the last 100 years demonstrates that most of us have struggled to adapt. It is estimated that 80 per cent of cancers are related in some way to diet, and it is probably evident to you that much of the food we eat today could not be described as healthy.

In fact, much of it wouldn’t be recognised by even our recent ancestors. Not only are the foods themselves different – the result of selective cultivation or the products of technology – but the ratios of fat, protein and carbohydrate have been reversed. Fat phobia flourishes, and grains – previously dismissed as mostly animal feed, as I have said – now form the foundation of almost everything we eat. In addition, some of what passes for food isn’t food at all but a concoction of chemicals, conceived in the laboratory rather than grown on the land. Modern grass eaters, particularly cows, may not have had access to grass, and non-organic crops will have been forced to grow in demineralised soils, which is why today’s produce contains an average of 80 per cent less nutrients than it did only 50 years ago.

This blog is taken from Go Paleo – Feeding the Urban Caveman by Eve Gilmore. You can read the first chapter here!

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Trick and Treat: How healthy eating is making us ill

Trick and treat: how healthy eating is making us ill

Every year the amount of money the Chancellor gives to the UK’s National Health Service goes up and so do our taxes to provide for it. And every year we hear more and more complaints about falling levels of service, lengthening waiting times for treatment, and worsening levels of hospital-borne diseases. With the billions of pounds we pump into the NHS each year, have you ever wondered why we don’t get a better service? The reason seems to be because we do pump billions of pounds into the NHS every year. Continue reading Trick and Treat: How healthy eating is making us ill